Review – The Official Chess.com App

In this article, I’m going to take a look at the official app of one of the most famous websites for those who like to play chess online or learn how to play chess at all/get better at playing chess.

The app includes pretty much all of the features of the website itself. Since I don’t have a premium membership, I obviously couldn’t test any of the features that come with premium membership, only those which come with free membership. Since it features everything the website does, the app is pretty feature rich.

As you can see here, this is how a chess game looks like in the app. If you want to start a game, you are presented with the same timing options as you get with the website. You can either choose to play the different modes of live chess or the longer version, where you get from 1 to 14 days for all your moves. This way you don’t play live, but obviously get more time to think before you get to make your move. The same as the website, you can chat with your opponent during the game and look at your previous moves as well by pressing the arrows on the bottom right, you can go through all the moves of you and your opponent.

Other features of the app include lectures, a tactics trainer, access to the forums of the website, games against a computer or a local game against a real opponent, where you both play on your phone/tablet. You can also follow the blog of chess.com, and manage your friends and account settings. While playing against a computer, you can set up the level of the difficulty, and for that and also local multiplayer you can set the app to show you the best possible moves and dangers to your pieces as well.

Perhaps, one of the best features is, to follow games other people are currently playing. You can follow the game live, the app basically shows you the board with the player’s timers and you can watch those people play from the comfort of your phone.

It’s a pretty good all around client for your chess playing pleasures. You can also change the theme, e.g. the chess board, pieces style and the background. There are many different options available for that. When it comes to the interface, the app is pretty okay. It doesn’t have full fledged material design, but it does take some of material design’s design cues and implementing things such as a floating action button, overall a nice and pretty usable interface. At the bottom you can see some more screenshots of the app.